Delivery Pipeline

Scenario

"Make a PDF and deliver it" — without leaving it unchecked. pdf-writer writes it, pdf-reader reads it back to observe whether it matches the intent, and pdf-verify (veraPDF) scores it before delivery. Only verify decides pass/fail; the writer's exit code is never taken as proof that the output matches the request.

The write sequence (FONT_REQUIRED → retry with fontPath) is the 2026-08-11 Publish Report. Read-back and gates on the stored deliverable publish-demo-invoice.pdf were re-measured on 2026-09-04 (pdf-writer-mcp v0.21.0 / pdf-reader-mcp v0.15.0 / pdf-verify-mcp v0.26.0 / veraPDF 1.30.0).

Cast

Actor	Role
pdf-publish Skill	Orchestration, transcribing warnings, the Publish Report
pdf-writer (required)	Writing, attaching, PDF/A vessel (ensure_pdfa)
pdf-reader (recommended)	Read-back observation (never pass/fail)
pdf-verify (required at conformance level)	validate_conformance (delegates to veraPDF)

Sequence

Prompt examples

• "Turn this invoice data into an e-bookkeeping-law PDF. Bundle the CSV, verify, then deliver"
• "Make this report an accessible PDF (PDF/UA), quality-assured"
• "Just a draft PDF is fine" (→ gate level none, and the report says so)

Measured example — the demo invoice's Publish Report

Phase	Result
Write (2026-08-11)	FONT_REQUIRED → recovered via the structured error's next_actions (fontPath). attach (Data) → ensure_pdfa (last)
Read-back (2026-09-04)	inspect_tags: tagged, one H1, TH 5 / TD 15 / TR 4. Catalog has StructTreeRoot, MarkInfo, Lang, Names, AF, OutputIntents
Gate (2026-09-04)	veraPDF 1.30.0 judged PDF/A-3b COMPLIANT (146/146) and PDF/UA-1 COMPLIANT (106/106)
Fix loop	0 iterations

Call — gates on the stored deliverable (re-measured)

• Measured: pdf-verify-mcp v0.26.0, veraPDF 1.30.0
• Specimen: docs/specimens/publish-demo-invoice.pdf

{
  "file_path": "/absolute/path/to/docs/specimens/publish-demo-invoice.pdf",
  "flavour": "pdfa-3b",
  "response_format": "json"
}

{
  "engine": "verapdf",
  "flavour": "PDF/A-3b",
  "compliant": true,
  "checkedRules": 146,
  "passedRules": 146,
  "failedRules": 0
}

With flavour: "pdfua-1", checkedRules / passedRules are 106 and compliant is true.

ensure_pdfa always returns a warning even on success ("CLAIMS … NOT checked"). That is design: the machine keeps saying that writing a label makes verification non-optional. The write sequence itself is still the 2026-08-11 log (no Japanese .otf in this environment, so the write was not re-run).

How to read the results

• The wording depends on the normative layer: PDF/A is "veraPDF judged it COMPLIANT" (T2 — never "conforms to ISO 19005"); PDF/UA-1 clauses can be quoted (T1, ISO 14289-1)
• compliant: null from the native engine means "no violations in the checked subset" — not conformance. The gate verdict is withheld and veraPDF is recommended
• Machine validation cannot judge whether alt text or reading order are semantically right; the report names what remains for human review
• The fix loop caps at 3; the same violation twice in a row goes straight to human review (cutoff conditions)